


lived so much life

by Pomfry



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Horror, I mean I tried anyways, Murder, this was an assignment for class and it got away from me lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 19:32:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: “I’m bored,” Luke says plaintively, and Avis scoffs, throwing her jacket on the bed. “No, seriously. I’m so bored.”“Then why are you here?” Avis replies, irritable. She scowls. “That is the third time you’ve said that in the last ten minutes.”





	lived so much life

**Author's Note:**

> I triiied

“I’m bored,” Luke says plaintively, and Avis scoffs, throwing her jacket on the bed. “No, seriously. I’m so bored.”

“Then why are you here?” Avis replies, irritable. She scowls. “That is the third time you’ve said that in the last ten minutes.”

_ “I’m bored,”  _ Luke hisses, hanging over the motel bed. “It’s not that hard to understand.”

“And I repeat. Why are you here?”

Luke sighs, his head touching the floor. All the blood is rushing to his head, his arms laying on the floor, and Avis stands over him, hands on her hips. “Avis, this is not somewhere I know,” he says, ever impatient. “We’re, like, five states away from home. Is it really that hard to understand why I’m not eager to go outside of this room? I didn’t trust the guy who handed you the key, let alone anyone I meet at around eleven at night.”

“You’re such a wuss.” Luke sits up straight, giving her an incredulous glance.

“I’m a  _ what?”  _ He reaches for the pillow — hard, like any other kind of motel pillow, but it makes for an excellent weapon. “I’ll have you know that I’m fearless!”

Avis rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. So why do you scream when you see a roach?”

“Because roaches are  _ really gross, okay?” _

Avis clearly doesn’t believe him, shaking her head. Her weave isn’t long, this time. It reaches her shoulder blades, if that, with silver intertwined with the dark brown. It’s pretty, and he told her as such when she got it done. Still, the light glints off the little bits of metal, and Luke follows it with his eyes.   
  
"...It's also because of what happened back home," he says quietly. Avis shifts on her feet, arms dangling at her sides. "It's scary, you know! Everyone else is back there except for us. My sister and brother are out of town already. And we were sent away. So it's just Mom and Dad."   
  
"I don't have anyone," Avis says with a soft sigh. "So I'm not particularly worried."

“Still.” Luke reaches out, grabs her hand. “I’m glad you’re with me. You would have been a perfect target.”

Avis makes a face like she’s not particularly happy with what he just said, but then, he expected that. She’s always been too independent for her own good — when she was eleven, she was making her own lunches and refusing any sort of help. So he’s lucky that she allowed him to drag her all the way out here.

“I’m not a target,” she says defiantly, and it’s precisely what he expected from her.  _ “You _ would be, though. All the victims were people who were taken from their homes with parents. They were a type. You, with your skin color and hair, would make a perfect target.”

Luke rolls his eyes, huffing to himself as he lets the rest of him slide off the bed, landing in a tangle of limbs on the floor. As he sorts himself out, Avis gives him a jacket, some money, and tells him to go get some ice cream.’

“Why?” he asks, bewildered, and she smiles, soft and mischievous, and it’s an expression Luke has learned to never trust. “Are you planning a prank?”

“God, no,” she laughs. “It’s just that I’m hungry for some ice cream, and you’re the man here. Nobody would think of tackling you.”

“You just told me I’m a wuss,” he says drily, and she crosses her arms, staring down at him with some strange intensity that makes his skin crawl. Lately, she’s been...frightening. She’s not an intense person, but lately, she’s been staring at him like she wants to devour him despite the fact that she has told him multiple times that she has no such interest in him.

_ Cannibals, _ whispers the part of his mind that watched Hannibal one too many times, and he frowns, telling it to shut up. There’s no way Avis is one of those. She’s too smart — she knows the risks that come along with eating human flesh. Besides, it’s near Halloween. It must be his head playing tricks on him.

“Besides,” he says when the silence has gone on for too long, “it’s not like I know how to fight. You’re the one with martial arts training here.” He pokes at his soft belly. “I’m the chubby one here.”

“Just go!” she snaps, nearly yelling, and Luke draws up short, looking at her with something like fear. Her eyes are wild, nearly sparking in her anger, and her lips are pulled back in a snarl that makes it...harder than it should be to reassociate her with his childhood friend.

“...Fine.” Luke stands, snatching the money. “Whatever. Stay here, I don’t care.”

“Luke…”

“No.” He laughs, self-deprecating and everything he knows Avis hates. “It’s not me, it’s you, whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’ll go get the damn ice cream, and then I’ll come back, and then you’ll hopefully be in a better mood.”

He slips the jacket on, the fabric soft at his elbows, and Avis watches him with a helplessness he’s all too aware she despises. “See you in twenty minutes.”

The door slams shut behind him.

  
\--

 

It takes him ten minutes to find a Kroger, another ten to find some ice cream that Avis likes. He just buys himself a simple vanilla, but Avis likes chocolate chip mint, and it took him forever to find it. He may be angry, but he’s a decent friend. So he gets the damn ice cream and pays, his wallet feeling much lighter than it had an hour before.

He grits his teeth. He doesn’t know why she’s acting like this, doesn’t know what’s gotten into her in the past few months. She’s been sneaky, been restless, and he doesn’t know why. Perhaps, it’s nothing. Perhaps it’s not. He doesn’t know, which is...odd. Avis always tells him everything.

He sighs, the doors sliding shut behind him. His car is parked, the only one in the lot beyond five others. The ice cream weighs down his arm, and the cold night air makes his breath comes out as mist. He shivers, rubs at his arms. Regretting his decision to leave without a jacket, he walks to his car, unlocking it with a click of the button on his keys.

God, this is stupid. He doesn't even know why he was mad.

He sets the ice cream in the passenger seat and closes the door, making his way around the car. A scuffle in the darkness by the trees and he furrows his brows, turning.

“...Hello?” he calls, and everything goes silent. The wind whistles ominously in his ears, and Luke takes a step forward. Then another. Then another, until he's at the tree line. “Hello? Anyone here?”

Someone turns. Luke's eyes widen, his breathing stutters to a halt at all the blood, at the body lying stiffly on the ground. At the person standing above the body.

“What?”

And the person lunges.

  
\---

 

The car screams its alarm, shattering the quiet. Luke stumbles over his own feet, face pale as he grabs at the handle of the car door. It's sticky and wet, and he pulls his hand away as quickly as he can. His heart is pounding in his ears, his mouth dry. He can't _think,_ can't breathe beyond the overwhelming terror that blanks his mind, makes his thoughts scatter. He can't — can't do anything beyond try to stagger away, limbs feeling like they weigh a hundred pounds each.  
  
He wonders if they'll fall out of their sockets, if they'll land on the tar with blood soaking his shoes. Wonders, for a moment, if he'll die here tonight.  
  
There's movement behind him. Skittering, hesitant, hungry. Luke doesn't look behind him. The car is still flashing, the internal lights a fake dawn in the night, and the screech of the alarms make his head hurt.   
  
His fingers twitch. He saw blood in that car, on the soft creme seats. On the steering wheel, too, and he doesn't know what to do with it, with the images seared into his brain. He doesn't know, and that's frightening, to him. He's always been the one with answers, always had questions, and now —  
  
And now it's all for nothing. His future, his friends, his talents — it's all for nothing.  
  
There's blood on his forehead. His ankle is twisted. He doesn't know how he keeps walking, slowly getting away.  
  
Bite marks on his skin. Saliva on his throat. He's scared and he's only sixteen, only a tenth grader, and he's scared. He wants his mom, wants her warm embrace and her soothing words. He wants to go _home,_ more than anything, but that likely won't happen now.  
  
Another skitter. The sound of a shoe catching on concrete. Soft, breathless laughter.  
  
Luke doesn't look back, despite every instinct, every self-preservation thought he has shouting at him to. He can't. If he does, he'll scream. And screaming...screaming is what they _want._

It's silent, now. Silent and oh so terrifying.

He nearly falls when his ankle gives, the pain fire up his leg. He gasps, grits his teeth. He has to keep going, has to make it to the car. It's twenty feet away. He can do it. Once he's inside, they won't try anything.    
  
Will they? Luke bites his lip. He doesn't  _ know.  _ This whole thing is trippy, loopy, making his head spin. He doesn't —   
  
He doesn't...   
  
He pushed his hair up, grips it at the base of his head. He's. God.   
  
This should only happen in horror films.   
  
Steps against the ground. Luke hurries his pace, panic a twisting, thriving thing in his chest. He can't be caught. He has a sister, a brother. A mother and a father and -   
  
The steps aren't hurried. If anything, they're slow. Steady. Entirely unlike his desperate pace, his ragged breathing.   
  
"You know," comes a voice, smooth and low. "It would be a lot easier if you just gave in now."

Luke closes his eyes, breathing harshly through his nose. Copper is on his tongue, red dripping into his eyes, and he ignores them.

It can’t be her. It simply can’t be.

"You're being ridiculous." A whisper of a step, the voice comes closer, and Luke startles as a hand lands on his shoulder, grips it tight. _ "Luke.  _ This is why I never told you."   
  
Luke turns. And Avis stands before him, her brown hair wet with blood, crimson on her clothes.   
  
And Luke can't breathe.   
  
“Avis,” he says, voice trembling, and she smiles, familiar and it hurts, to see that soft smile twisted into something macabre. There’s blood on her teeth. He shivers. “Avis, please —”

“I told myself,” Avis says thoughtfully, a finger tapping her lips, “that I would tell you one day.” A flash of a grin, predatory and horrifying, and she takes a step closer, so close there’s nothing between them. Nothing except little atoms. He laughs a little, at the thought. He can’t remember anything from science but he can recall that when he’s about to die. He laughs so hard he bends over, laughs so hard it turns to tears, and Avis taps the knife against her leg, watching him laugh. It’s weird, it’s horrific. It’s betrayal, and he never knew what that felt like but he does now. It’s a burning thing in the back of his throat, the sting of tears in his eyes, and the taste of blood in his mouth. It’s everything and nothing, and —

“Were you the one taking kids?” he breathes, and lifts his eyes to her’s.

“Kids are so juicy,” Avis sighs dreamily. “So plump. Their screams are great, too. It’s amazing, you know, to see how they turn pale.” A hand comes up, caresses his cheek, and he flinches back, falling to the ground. She crouches before him, still grinning that grin, and Luke scrambles away, biting back the cry of pain at the way his ankle moves.

It has to be broken. It has to be.

“I wonder how you’ll taste,” Avis hums, and Luke — Luke watches, with something like hopelessness, with something like helplessness, with something like terror but so much stronger, as she lifts the knife in her hand.

He’s going to die. In an old parking lot, by a rundown Kroger, with the same kidnapper that’s been plaguing his home for months.

He going to die at Avis’ hands. Just another victim to add to her list. He breathes through it, accepts it with a calmness that isn’t like him, isn’t like the horror that sits heavy in his stomach.

He can only hope that he can help bring her to justice.

He spits in her face, watches as the blood and saliva gets on her fancy blouse that costed so much, and laughs at the way her face twists in fury.

He laughs and he laughs. He laughs through the agony, laughs through the pain.

He laughs through the darkness, and his hysterical, sorrow-filled cackles are the last thing he hears.


End file.
